they want to do things “correctly,” but still need a platform to move around/engage
trying hard to “grow up”
self-fulfilling prophecy: borderline “tracking” begins to give students labels
they are “still so young”
Their level of writing skills differ from one another greatly.
They have been experiencing dramatic change in every aspects of their life: psychologically and physically, and intellectually.
Writing Workshop: Strategies for Helping Writing & Writers to Grow
Set expectations and be consistent (what we expect them to do and on what they have done in the past)
Give students functional, real-world reasons to write - nudges them to share purpose/heart/learn persuasive writing
move towards texts that don’t require drawings - nudges students to be more descriptive
give them more time to write - at first, won’t help writing, but eventually helps them draw out their stories and put more ideas out
Both the teacher and parents should focus more if the students can write with more details, not if they can do a better job. Quantity comes before quality.
strategies for revision - peer editing(conference) and critiquing, & have them add to their work-writing becomes less lonely
young children’s talk almost always moves their writing forward- lead them to write longer texts.
we need to have patience.
Notebooks
can help add order to work/revisions/editing
gather entries and shape students into specific genres
can allow students to commit to work that doesn’t feel “peer sanctioned” - no pressure of a story/free write being “big enough” or “special enough” to write about; can become cathartic
audience awareness comes worry, but their worries are a sign of growth.
asks students to find meaning in the moments of their lives
can help the second or third graders to organize their writing into genres.
write under “the cover of safety.” -notebooks afford the students a space to write anything they like and are free from the caring of the audience instead of “entertaining” the audience.
Using Children’s Concern with the “right way” to do things to broaden their repertoire of strategies:
when students pay more attention to the procedure than the product (i.e. Wendy and the “carrots”/carets), they get in the habit of performing it and discover through play - support risk-taking
teach them to disengage from writing and pick up another task - i.e. revising, conferencing
Vygotsky “what a child can do in cooperation today, he can do independently tomorrow.”
writing is not a simple succession of adding on but an act of revision: reorganizing one’s thoughts and make them connected and meaningful throughout the whole passage. - the purpose of revision is not to correct but to discover.
make full use of the journal entries: encourage the students to reread their entries and try to “ write off” from them.
“central executive function” - allow shift attention back and forth between reading and writing, talking and writing, thinking and writing.
teachers are wise to learn the positive and problematic power of compliments and models, and notice how much students focus on procedures.
the author’s chair- “what questions do audience might have?” - new flexibility and awareness/ try to do differently
Questions: Children like to repeat what we have praised; how can we make appropriate compliments so as not to let the students fall into the “ trap” of repetition, and make them aware that we appreciate creative and inquiring piece of work?
NEXT: Ch. 9 Developing Learning Communities in the Upper Elementary Grades Students of second and fourth graders are in a stage of changing both physically and intellectually, they still carry some characteristics of a kindergartener's nature, yet they start to realize the importance of “please the audience” and pay more attentions on rules and procedures of anything. As a writing teacher, we should use suitable strategies to let them keep their curious and inquiring mind on one hand and help them to use journal entries to learn specific writing skills to make their writing more complete and more expressive. Then they can get prepared for the next phase of writing.
KEY POINTS
Keep in mind about “in-between” grades:
- they want to do things “correctly,” but still need a platform to move around/engage
- trying hard to “grow up”
- self-fulfilling prophecy: borderline “tracking” begins to give students labels
- they are “still so young”
- Their level of writing skills differ from one another greatly.
- They have been experiencing dramatic change in every aspects of their life: psychologically and physically, and intellectually.
Writing Workshop: Strategies for Helping Writing & Writers to GrowNotebooks
Using Children’s Concern with the “right way” to do things to broaden their repertoire of strategies:
Questions:
Children like to repeat what we have praised; how can we make appropriate compliments so as not to let the students fall into the “ trap” of repetition, and make them aware that we appreciate creative and inquiring piece of work?
NEXT: Ch. 9 Developing Learning Communities in the Upper Elementary Grades
Students of second and fourth graders are in a stage of changing both physically and intellectually, they still carry some characteristics of a kindergartener's nature, yet they start to realize the importance of “please the audience” and pay more attentions on rules and procedures of anything. As a writing teacher, we should use suitable strategies to let them keep their curious and inquiring mind on one hand and help them to use journal entries to learn specific writing skills to make their writing more complete and more expressive. Then they can get prepared for the next phase of writing.